Episode 20 - Taming the Green-Eyed Monster: From Jealousy to Joy

Feeling jealous? You're not alone, buttercups! In this raw and real episode, Arturo and Anthony dive deep into transforming jealousy from your enemy to your teacher. From past relationship drama to professional envy, we're getting honest about how jealousy shows up in our lives and what it's really trying to tell us.

Discover how to:

• Transform ALL CAPS jealousy into manageable lowercase feelings
• Understand jealousy as a trauma response (and why that matters)
• Turn your jealous triggers into personal growth opportunities
• Navigate relationship jealousy with grace and compassion
• Use the 24-hour rule to avoid jealousy spirals

Whether you're envious of your ex's new flame or your coworker's promotion, we've got you covered. Join us for some real talk about turning your green-eyed monster into your greatest teacher. Remember: your light isn't dimmed by someone else's brightness - it's time to let your authentic self shine!

Tune in to "YASKing with Anthony and Arturo" on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Don't forget to subscribe and follow Anthony on TikTok at @coachcatalino and Arturo on IG at @arturodiaz and TikTok @arturodiaznyc

Transcript

YASKING Jealousy Podcast Transcript

Sun, Oct 27, 2024 8:40PM • 18:42

SPEAKERS

Arturo Diaz, Anthony Catalino

Arturo Diaz  00:00

Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of YASKing with Anthony and Arturo. I'm Arturo Diaz.

Anthony Catalino  00:25

And I'm Anthony Catalino. It's so nice to be here.

Arturo Diaz  00:28

It is so good to be here. It's a beautiful day. Sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and there's pumpkin spice. Everything

Anthony Catalino  00:37

Today, I sound like a horse.

Arturo Diaz  00:42

Today. We're diving in deep into the green eyed monster. We all know too well jealousy. We're impacting why we feel it, how it impacts our lives, and most importantly, how to turn that jealous energy into personal power. Whether you're envious of your ex's new flame or your co workers promotion, we've got you covered. So buckle up. Buttercups and sun, get real. Get inspired and start Yes, getting the big question, are you ready to transform your jealousy into joy? 

Anthony Catalino  01:10

Are you ready? Are you ready?! Turn jealousy into joy? I love that, because I can't imagine people that are listening here like, like the feelings of insecurity love, the feelings of living in fear and anxiety over the possibility of losing something, a person, a relationship, a job, and we get so caught up in that noise and it's so overwhelming. I think everyone listening, including ourselves, can relate that it has, you know, I think for years ago, I'm not the jealous type. I'm not jealous, but deep down inside, hell fucking Yeah, because I was afraid of losing something that I thought was so good in my life. But now that I'm much older, I realize everything I've lost is actually healthy. Everything I lost in that moment that I was so maybe distraught, maybe was a partner broke up with me, or whatever it may have been, I realized that was my higher self, the universe co inspiring into a better quality of life for myself. That person wasn't good for me any longer. They taught me, the lessons they gave me, the insight, whatever it may be, you know,

Arturo Diaz  02:09

Getting jealous is not fun, like you said, getting jealous is actually painful. Doesn't feel good in the body. And on top of it, we beat ourselves up for getting jealous. We feel dumb for being jealous. We don't do a good job of making space for it or exploring what it means. Meanwhile, jealousy is a completely natural response. If you're very compassionate ourselves, it's completely natural for all of us to get jealous. The problem is that jealousy gets triggered sometimes when we hit upon fears of abandonment or self worth. So I recommend not leading with judgment when you or your partner are jealous actually, instead, find out what the stories behind the jealous but Anthony, I don't see you as being a jealous person. 

Anthony Catalino  02:45

Maybe not now but in past, are you kidding? We could dive into this. Some of the causes of jealousy, we have insecurity about ourselves. We don't believe in our own worth, which is 99.9% of our community led to believe that we're not worthy, that we're not good enough, fear of abandonment. Maybe when you were younger, you developed the fear that someone wasn't gonna be there for you. Maybe your parents, your guardian, whoever raised you, maybe they weren't there for you the way that you had wished they were. These are things that I was raised to believe because I thought I was different, because I didn't believe in my worth. I actually didn't really work through my worthiness until my late 30s, because I didn't know enough to but Oh, with with relationships, partners always terrified that they were to leave me because I wasn't good enough. But now I've come to a point in my life where I'm so independent. I've worked through so much personal development and self help, and I don't feel like I need anybody. I don't get jealous of other people in my relationship, thinking that might someone might swoop my husband away from me. But where I am now, it's not where I was. I've grown so much from it. So I think it's very important to realize you might not witness being me being a jealous person, but there was a time and a place where I felt riddled with jealousy. There are people that have been betrayed in the past. Can any of you that are listening and relate? Maybe you were hurt in a previous relationship. Remember word relationship can mean a variety of things, relationship with animals, with people, with partners, with your parents, with your siblings, and the more that we've been hurt, the more that we feel like the world is trying to hurt us. Longer I've been on this planet, I've realized that that's not the case. No one's out to get me, except for myself. If I believe that, if you believe there's a monster in your bed, there's gonna be a monster. Remember, a lot of what we create began when we were a child. 

Arturo Diaz  04:10

That's why jealousy is most often a trauma response. People have been hurt. I was definitely hurt as a kid, and I definitely have very strong feelings of abandonment so forth that have popped up in moments of great duress. If I'm very stressed out about one part of my life, I have noticed that I'm more likely to get jealous about something that logically I know I shouldn't be jealous about, but in that moment, I get so triggered that I'm gonna fearful of losing a person or something I care about, or that somehow this new information that's entered in my mind is confirmation that I am not worth and I really commend you for working through your issues of jealousy. It's been only in the past couple years for me that I've actually actively started to work on that and explore what the jealousy mean. First step for me was to strip the judgment I had being jealous in the past. When I would get jealous, not only would I beat myself up, my partner would be up, and I don't think I ever explored what it meant. I just felt I felt dumb now that I see jealousy as being something that tried to tell me something, I try to examine what's the narrative behind it. The next time I am in this situation with a partner and I get jealous, I'm hopeful, I'm confident, in fact, that I will be able to, you know, more proactive about it, have a conversation about it. Ask for compassion if I need to, and stand firm and say, like, Oh no, there's something that I meant to explore. Jealousy doesn't have to be all caps moments. It can be a lowercase emotion

Anthony Catalino  05:33

oh yeah. 

Arturo Diaz  05:33

The key is to make space for it so he can, like, experience it as a lowercase motion and then be curious about it.

Anthony Catalino  05:38

 I do think that's a great way to manage jealousy. You know, the better we get at managing our lives and the pieces of ourselves, then it gets the quality or the feelings get much better. But yeah, open communication for sure, whether it's talking to the partner or a friend, I've worked with a lot of clients where I have them write letters towards whatever they're experiencing. So if it's jealousy, in this case, write a letter to jealousy. Say, Hey, bitch, yeah, kindness wins. We don't. We don't want to be super, super aggressive, because then that's putting it in all caps letters, like you just said, 

Arturo Diaz  06:10

Remember that in our world, bitch can be a fierce thing. 

Anthony Catalino  06:13

Well, in my world, I have a little daughter as a bitch. She's a Jack Russell Terrier. But yeah, communication. I mean, how often or have any of you got lost in your head. They say you're in a relationship, and you feel a little jealous because maybe some other guy checked out your partner, or they were talking to that person, or whatever it may be. Because I used to feel the weight of all that. I remember I was jealous with the people that had slept with previously, before we started dating. I used to get so caught up in that noise. But did I ever actually speak up to my partner about it, have that open line of communication, or did I just continue to beat myself up, get lost in my thoughts and feel worthless? It was the worthless part. I didn't. I didn't speak up ever, and now I'm so grateful that I put him a point. I priority in my life to speak up. I'm over hiding. I'm over hiding from any of the things that I experienced within me, within my mind. Remember, your mind is a tool. Quite often we're listening to our mind, not our heart. 

Arturo Diaz  07:06

So what advice would you give to people who are looking to let go of intrusive thoughts? 

Anthony Catalino  07:11

I think a great thing, and you and I have been doing this for quite some time, is to write it out. Have an experience. Give yourself some time, and don't tell me that you don't have time because you curate. You create the time self reflect. It is very it is important, or it's essential, to understand the root cause of your jealousy, because it most likely stems from something when you were a child. But the more you can write it out like, almost like you're facing your beers in that moment. Are you? You are magnificent at this. In our little tribe of men that we've been having, going every day and writing down our field, and I've know, I've mentioned this to our listeners before we would write down what we're experiencing. And I don't know about you, but that has helped me tremendously. 

Arturo Diaz  07:46

Putting thoughts down paper is so powerful, because when you put stuff down, you see the absurdity of your fears. Somehow they seem bigger. When you keep them in your mind, bigger and more compelling, and then we put it on paper, you see how absurd and stupid it is. Like a little logical it is like your fear about your partner's past relationships, and you examine that, you see how absurd that is. They're actually choosing to be with you right now. So why even explore or create that story? But it's all rooted in like, your own trauma, your own stuff, but you can't really see that. It's fascinating is that the universal part of the human experience, and the beautiful irony is that I actually want someone with a lot of history and experince. I want someone who has lived, loved, learned and grown from it all, and I'm working to get where you're at, where you believe that you don't need anybody, which is ultimately true. We do need love in our lives, but no one person is meant for us forever.

Anthony Catalino  08:39

Yeah, of course. And if only I knew he had those tools when I was younger, but I wasn't. Had no idea, because we're not taught any of this. Keep in mind that what we're taught growing up in our school and society is to keep us attached to our pain, is to keep us limited from all the resources that we have, plus dumbed down and feeling small. That was all done on purpose so you wouldn't realize your inherent worth. But more and more and more people are waking up. We've talked about this. We had an episode on it, waking up to the truth of who we are. So I don't think there's one true way to like, cut off the jealousy, but self reflection for sure, open lines of communication with your partner, your friends, whomever it may be, but also realizing that when you communicate these things, if you're angry and upset and scared, give yourself five minutes to let out that grief, in that in that in that anger, something my partner and I have been working on when we started, when we first got together, something you're upset about, something you got five minutes to let it out, because after that, you're just beating a dead report. And Johnny and I really praised ourselves at communicating well. Now have we done this beautifully the entire time the 16 years we've been together? Because there were also some things that we were terrified to speak up with, but that communication, like I could see sometimes when he was uncomfortable with maybe the way that someone checked me out on the street, and he would feel really bad about it. And so as a partner, I could see the fear in his eyes, and I said, Listen this, that's not fair to you, and it's not fair to me. I have zero control over how that person called checked me out. And again, this is just an example, and you wouldn't feel jealous when somebody checked him out. No, if anything? Well, maybe you know before I met him in my first few relationships, but I had learned by that point that, no, he's a stud. He deserves to be checked out. He deserves to get that loving attention. But is it interesting how I can now perceive it as loving attention? But before, it was haunting because he's mine and mine only, but I don't want him just to be mine, that conditioned response to attachment. He is not mine. I am not his. That that is control, that is, I think, something else that we've been led was true. That's why I secretly love that we decided to have an open relationship, which was something I never even thought of, but we talked about it, we allowed ourselves that space. And yes, it was hard, but it's gotten much better. And yet the jealousy still comes up. But if you were to leave me for someone else, I think I could. I've gotten to a point where I could be okay with that, because I don't see I don't see him leaving me. I see us having, of having this beautiful, profound experience on this planet. And everything is temporary. Nothing lasts forever.

Arturo Diaz  10:49

Nothing lasts forever because of that. You should always appreciate them now, because whether you're not really like it or not, it's gonna change after three did it a hot, successful, three, eight year old, and although here was his vibrant, hot, young Latino. I feel like I couldn't measure up to his world that had been enjoying myself. The hot guy wasn't mean to me, and I was into him. We were in love. And instead of enjoying myself in the moment, I'd get caught up in these stories of inadequacy. Get jealous about things I didn't even get jealous about self sabotage in ways. And if I could time travel, I would tell myself to have more compassion with myself and to see how beautiful I was. I was so focused on what I wasn't that I couldn't see what I was. But again, I let that jealousy rob me of some of the joy that I could have experienced in that part of my life. When you can't see your own worth, you start hunting for confirmation that you don't deserve. Meanwhile, the jealousy is coming here to tell you, hey, there's a part of us that has hurt like you need to look at, there's these tells inadequacy or abandonment that you need to let go of. Pay attention to that. And although my brain of what my mind actively avoided unpacking those feelings, and it looked literally, took me into my third 40s to start doing that. It's been so incredibly rewarding to do it. Jealousy can be a very precise compass.

Anthony Catalino  12:03

I think I can now perceive jealousy as a beautiful awakening amongst because think about it, if if you were a jealous over anything. Now I think a lot of people can relate. Part of the process. It's part of the package that you evidently signed up for. We all signed up for. But if we can, if we can see if I'm feeling jealous or uncertain in anywhere area of my life, that's a perfect opportunity for him to look at that face. What about me? And you can literally ask yourself questions, and you will receive an answer. Don't expectations when you'll receive that answer, because then you'll you'll be let down, because it might not come to you for three weeks when you picked up a new book that someone had recommended, and what you read in the very first page was just what you needed to hear. But what about me? Phil believes that I deserve to struggle. Or what about this? Jealousy is actually a gift, and the more you can start to reframe, self, reflect, change the way you view things to a different lens than the one you've been conditioned to experience. Oh my god, there's gold, there's truth, there's wisdom, and I can confidently and proudly say these, mind you, that was way different when I was younger. I think something else some people could do is, like art has done, hire a therapist and a coach. Doesn't mean you have to hire both, but somebody to talk to could be a counselor, a mentor. I don't I don't have time for everybody, but I secretly love I went on a hike yesterday with a good friend. We got out in nature, took our dogs. It took about it took about an hour, and she had a massive breakthrough. And at first she apologized for bringing that sadness to the space, but then I asked her to give herself forgiveness for that, that that apology, and thank me for allowing her to have that space, because I was happy to give her that space today, jealousy, jealousy, anything else we want to share with our listeners today, there's different types. We talked about the romantic, social, social standing, professional in your work environment. Also, jealousy can occur within families. Siblings who gets who got more attention? I think that's something to just to look deeper into. If you have siblings in your family and and you know, you got all the attention when you were first born, but when another one came along, they got all the attention. If you were the last one born, you got even less attention, because then the older siblings got to take care of you, there's like so many different ways we have learned to be human, and which would be the cause

Arturo Diaz  14:24

Here are three practical tips that helped us manage jealous 24 hour one tells a hit, wait 24 hours before acting on it, usually half of what you're imagining isn't. jealousy hits, wait 24 hours before acting on it usually half what you're imagining isn't real to create in our minds. Lastly, the redirect when you feel jealous of someone, try to turn that energy into inspiration instead of why do they have to ask, what steps can I take toward what I want listen jealousy is part of the human experience. It visits every one of us, but instead of treating like this monstrous emotion, we need to hide or deny. What if we saw it as a messenger? Sometimes it's telling us where we need to heal. Sometimes it's pointing us toward what we truly desire. And yeah, sometimes it's just an old story on repeat. I don't think the key is and to never feel jealous. That's unreal. The key is to learn how to hold jealousy differently. Notice it, name it. Get curious about it, not let it run the show, whether it's whispering about a partner's past or screaming about someone else's success. Remember, you can acknowledge jealousy without being consumed by it. And here's what I've learned that I want you to take away. Often, the thing we're most jealous about reveal what we most deeply want for ourselves. So instead of beating yourself up, up, of feeling jealous, use it as a compass. Let it guide you toward your own healing, your own path forward at the end of the day, your unique light isn't dimmed by someone else's brightness. You're not here to be a copy of anyone else. You're here to be the fullest, most authentic version of yourself.  All right, beautiful. Thank you for the love the conversation today. 

Anthony Catalino  16:05

Thank you as well. Till next time! YASKING!

18:00

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